Category Archives: Non Waitemata

Not quite the Waitemata – but very cool wooden boats

Video

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Not quite the Waitemata but this video of the Classic Yacht Association USA /Pacific Northwest Fleet’s traditional kick-off to the boating season is a great parade of gorgeous motoryachts. Of particular interest to me is the new PNW Fleet Commodore, Jessica Freeman, seen onbard aboard her Flagship, PEACEFUL, leading the fleet.

I have followed the ‘rolling renovation’ of PEACEFUL for several years (seasons) on the WoodenBoat forum. Link below
http://forum.woodenboat.com/showthread.php?110427-Restoration-of-a-1939-Richardson&highlight=Peaceful

Avante / Avanti

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Matiatia 1949/50
AVANTE/AVANTI
A message from the new owners.AH
We have recently purchased Avante – a motorsailer from 1946.
We are trying to find more history on her – if any of your members can help.  We found her Registered # carved in as 178442 and Nett Tonnage to be 2.02 tonne
What I have found out from Maritime NZ is:
Her registered name is Avante even though her plaque say Avanti
She was registered in NZ in 1949 and her registration closed in 2003 under Section 91 of Ship Registration Act
Her year of build was 1946 by Bruce Eady in Auckland.  She was designed by Brian Donovan,with a cutter rig and is double diagonal Kauri with carvel plank.
Construction started in 1939 by Brian and his boatbuilder brother Des but nothing was done during the war until 1945 when Brian sold her to Bruce Eady and Bruce put on the third skin and completed the job.
She was launched at Mission Bay in 1946 with a 4 cylinder Gray auxiliary.
Eady sold her to N R Sanson in 1954.
She was in the Sanson family for many years, at least until 1990.
She was stolen in 1973 for a while.
She has a registered length of 8.58 meters.
I have attached some photos of her as we found her in Tauranga – at present she is on our front lawn and work has started on her refurbishment.
Any info anyone may have would be great. Email Ann at
tobinhnz@xtra.co.nz
Note: Thanks to Harold Kid for input re known history
SIDEBAR 1(AH)
B/W photos,  just before launching, supplied by Don Currie , those dad worked with Bruce Eady on Avanti. Avanti was completed on an emptly section on Cogrington Crescent, Mission Bay, his father and Bruce worked on the boat in a partnership.  Don’s parents met through Avanti (one of his Mum’s aunts lived a couple of houses up the road in Codrington Cr), they are still together, and I understand they were right chuffed to hear that the boat is about to get a bit of a birthday.
SIDEBAR 2 (Ken Ricketts)
Photo added of Avante taken in 1949/50 in Matiatia when he was 12 years old
SIDEBAR 3 (by Bruce Eddy ex Ken Ricketts)
I and Graeme Currie worked on her together during the war.  Materials were scarce we had no electricity so everything was done with hand tools.  I remember carving out the original mast by hand what a job.
The correct name or the name i christened her is Avanti.
The two crew mentioned in the photo at Matiatia are John Kernahan and Vern DeGroot.  Graeme and I spent hours riveting and with his design brilliance, we installed a gray marine in the cockpit, reverse position driving a 2 to 1 chain reduction.  Petrol shortage made us build a heat exchanger to switch to kerosene.  The lead keel we moulded on site with firewood from scrape suffering many personal lead burns.  Originally I installed a small wood burner stove and we made our own style toilet.  The rig was my own design and given a good wind on a reach we would keep up with many yachts.
SIDEBAR 4 (by Ann Tobin, current owner, ex Ken Ricketts)
Currently she is sitting on our front lawn in Kaikohe – the photos on waitematawoodys are the day we hauled her out and had her trucked up in May this year.  She hadn’t been out of the water (or off her marina berth at Bridge Marina Tauranga) for 9 years.
We have found an amount of rot in her (mainly just the planks) and she is slowly drying out.  At present the interior is gutted – she had been leaking through the cabin top and the inside was completely ruined.
Avante is now powered with a Sole Diesel – which we have out and intend to have blasted and painted (at present sitting on our garage floor on a pellet) – The engine would not run – a starter motor issue we believe.  Steve (my husbands) father has worked on these engines so looking forward to getting it going.
I believe that the previous owner used her as a batch basically in Tauranga as he lived in Huntly.
I have attached some photos of her at home for you (added to the montage above AH) – you can see where we have started stripping paint and some of the areas of rot we have found.  There is also a couple of the cabin top which is now sealed and Steve has started to fiberglass.  It had a type of cloth over it which has split – never been repaired – and therefore was leaking like the proverbial sieve!
Sometimes I think we are mad – but others cant wait to see her back in the water.  Wooden boats are in my blood – Mum and Dad did a similar thing with “Isa Lei” back in the 90’s – we see she has just been resold by a guy in Whitianga.

Royal Saxon

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ROYAL SAXTON

photos & story ex Harold Kidd

ROYAL SAXON was built by Colin Wild for Whangarei surveyor Harold Frederick Saxon Charlesworth and launched in October 1930.

She was 33ft loa, 9ft 6in beam and drew just under 4ft. Her original engine was a 35hp Kermath.

In late 1936 Charlesworth sold her to Mrs. G Kendall of Hamilton who kept her on the Waitemata. The Sanders brothers bought both ROYAL SAXON and MOVARIE in 1940. They kept MOVARIE until they bought LADY CROSSLEY in 1956 but sold ROYAL SAXON in 1943 to Gordon Hunter. ROYAL SAXON was a patrol vessel with NAPS from around 1942-1943, under skipper J G Brook as Z21.

Gordon Hunter sold her to R & J F Phillips-Turner in 1945, they sold her to W G Gottwaltz of Thames in 1947; he sold her to J G Browne of Katikati in 1948; he sold her and she was owned in 1973 by Dr. W R Trotter of Epsom. She was owned in Motueka  when I saw her and photographed her about 11 years ago nosing her way into the Sandfly (Falls) River on the Tasman Bay coast, still in lovely condition.

The photo of her on the slip at Whakatakataka Bay is probably during the latter stages of the war when she had reverted to civilian control. She’s wearing her wartime reporting number on her bows without which she could have been sunk by the batteries on North Head.

Update from Rick McCay (current owner of Luana)

We owned Royal Saxon from 1989 to 1994. She was a superb first classic launch for us. We bought her from Don Watson who lived on Waiheke Island and to his credit she was in perfect condition. We restored the bridge varnish as she was all white when we got her. In 1994 we sold her as we had fallen under the spell of Luana, and as we all know while owning one old boat is a catastrophe, two is an absolute disaster. We sold her to a lovely man Captain Tom Rowling [brother of PM Bill Rowling] who was skipper of the Golden Bay cement ship. We had a great afternoon on board his ship one time it was in Auckland. He trucked Royal Saxon to Mana and motored her across Cook Strait to her future home, Motueka. Dr Trotter was a keen amateur cabinet maker and Saxon had a lovely interior courtesy of his expertise.

SIDEBAR (ex AH)

Now a woody who shall remain nameless passed this story onto me 🙂
“When Doc Trotter owned “Royal Saxon”, he had an elegant daughter who was draped on the bikini deck  –the part between the houses on a bridgedecker –quite sheltered for sunbathing.. Anyway, I did my hair and rowed slowly past and tried to chat her up. She didn’t want any of it! Shame-  she could have had me too if she had tried.
 Life is paved with rebuffs from Dio and St Cuths chicks…..”
17-02-2016 photo of Royal Saxon at Kaiteriteri ex John Burland
Royal Saxon @ Kaiteriteri

Want to be a waitematawoody?

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Easy – buy Rotomahana, the 1923 Bailey & Lowe launch. Harold Kidd referred to her as a ‘baby Romanace II’, owned long-term by Humphrey Duder of Devonport.
33ft, kauri hull, 45hp dsl, 4 berths, toilet with holding tank, gas cooker, fridge, gps chartplotter, depth sounder, 2 x batteries, shorepower, electric capstan, aft boarding platform. A well presented classic. Call Gavin in Picton on 0272 757 716 Reduced to $32,500
 
 More photos & details here 

Belle Isle

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BELLE ISLE
New owner, looking for details on this rather pretty 27′ double ender. Kauri planked, obviously had an in-board before that appendix on the stern. The un-confirmed build date is ‘said’ to be 1913. As the architects say – she has great bones. I can just see her on a lake.
She came from Taranaki.
Being this distinctive someone must be able to shed some light on her past?
Harold Kidd Update:
The only reference I have found is to a BELLE ISLE being a 26ft Hutt Valley launch, one of 23 that joined the Heretaunga Boating Club in October 1929. I suppose it’s the same one that somehow migrated up the coast to New Plymouth, maybe by rail. I would think that 1913 is right for the raised foredeck but wrong for the torpedo stern unless she’s a Sounds boat where the builders favoured such sterns well after they had been dropped in favour of broad tuck sterns elsewhere.
Belle Isle was a well-known barque that traded on the Tasman in the late 19th century and could be the inspiration for her name, although I suspect she wasn’t built as BELLE ISLE.
Update (09/07/13) from the new owner
I’ve just caught up with the guy who sold it to me, I’ve got some new info on her.
First, she’s never been to Taranaki..but she was built in Auckland, spend a long time on Lake Waikaremoana and end up in Wanganui.
Harold Kidd Update

If that’s the case, then she would have been built in the period 1903-6 and certainly without that raised foredeck. In 1903 Logan Bros built a launch, KAHURANGI, for the Government Tourist Bureau’s passenger work on the Lake of vaguely similar configuration, but bigger at 36ft, so there’s a possibility that she’s a Logan. It was quite a trick getting vessels to the Lake in those days as they had to be shipped to Gisborne and taken over the metalled road to the Lake on a waggon drawn by a bullock team. 
A Dr. Collins of Gisborne had a similar launch on the Lake which was damaged in a fire in 1913. I have no name for that boat, but it could have been rebuilt in this configuration after the fire, perhaps?
Most of the Lake launches migrated there from Gisborne or Napier, like IDALIA which is still there.
 
HK Update2
As an afterthought, It’s unlikely she was built by Logan Bros who, although they built many launches with this type of “torpedo” or “compromise” stern, usually didn’t build single skin boats, nor would they have built a single skin boat with those horrible butts in the planking in the image taken from aft, although I guess they could be the result of amateurish repairs.

Meteor

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METEOR
Another owner looking for more info on their launch.

‘Meteor’ was built in 1912 by David Reid and about 1948 registered as H-1 and renamed Heather C.  Owner at this stage was F C Conway. The current owners don’t even have a photo of her.
The coloured photo above is what she was like when purchased by a previous owner.  She was purchased while lying in mud and was too nice a boat to leave her there.  The owners did some work to her to use over the summer period & now she is back on the hard in Whangarei for major work.

Update from Harold Kidd:
There is considerable puzzlement about the provenance and names of this boat. She is supposed to have been built as a 28ft mullet boat by David Reid along the lines of the other 28 footers he built for fishing, as did Harvey and Lang at the same time. She was probably built for the Ponsonby fisherman George Murphy and called METEOR originally, then went to Hooks of Putiki and had several subsequent names, SCUD, VALKYRIE and HEATHER C. Some of these 28 footers had no centreboard, but this one must have, as she was registered as an H Class in 1948. Several other 28 footers were made into launches as their hulls were eminently suitable once the centreboard slot had been sealed, for example TWILIGHT (now dying on a farm near Kawakawa) and ZITA.

Getting Hooked

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Getting Hooked

WAINUI

Below is a tale by Phil Parks that I’m sure a lot of us can relate to, sounds very familiar. AH

I have been a lover all things to do with the ocean and boats since being pushed off Howick Beach as a 5 year old in my first P class.

As my life has evolved boats have always figured but my love of surfing was foremost until recently.

Living on the west coast is not that conducive to owning boats although I do have a purpose built tinny to go fishing out here when the swell is small enough.

About 15 years ago I bought a place at Ti Point near Leigh and have had a nice fizz boat up there. This has rekindled my love of boating and as age is now making surfing harder all the time I am spending more time boating.

I have dreamed about owning a classic launch for years and always troll the for sale columns looking at everything for sale. Funny how that gives you a good sense of values of various vessels.

The only thing that has stopped me “going for it” has been the lack of some where to keep a launch.

I had applied for a mooring 12 years ago with the Rodney council but it soon became apparent the whole process was an absolute wrought as I never proceeded to get any where near the top the list although new boats seemed to be appearing all the time.

I had always called the mooring administrators annually to whine about the process and to keep my name on the books.

When I did that in 2011 I was now dealing with the new Auckland Council and I was flabbergasted when a very helpful lady heard my cause and replied “well there are a couple of sites available do you want one?”

Did I what!!!! I paid the money and secured a mooring site that could be viewed from my bach lounge. Fan bloody tastic! Now every time I looked at boats a wave of excitement came over me!

Xmas 2011 and looking at trade me I spied a nice looking old launch that seemed to be at a good price. Problem it was at Hohorua. Made a few calls to the owner but never got around to getting up there to have a look.

I could not get her out of my mind and when another boat that was at Kohukohu came on the market I thought I would do a road trip. Arranged to look at 8 boats, jumped in the car and took off.

There were only 2 boats that interested me mainly because I was fussy about the “look”. It just had to look right. Most did not.

Anyway one thing led to another, time passed but I eventually became the owner of the 28′ Wainui.

It was the originally boat that I saw on trade me 5 months before and was smitten with. As it was a deceased estate and the family were finding it a real hassel to keep I ended up getting her for a very good price and the whole deal had a good feeling to it. Very co-operative vendors.

It now meant there was pressure on to get the mooring established and that is another whole story in itself.

My best friend and I sailed her down from Hohorua to Ti Point and that was a fantastic trip and again another good story.

She now sits in Ti Point Harbour with a few other classics. I will soon move her up to the bach for a full restoration.

Probably have to sell the fizzer to afford it but worth it.

Its all about the journey………….Phil Parks

27-02-2017 Photo below by (ex Colin Brown) of Wainui at a Mangawhai property. Most likely the bach mentioned in the story above.

wainui-at-mangawhai-27-2-17-ex-c-b

Curious Cove Holiday Resort

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Stingray & Miss Kahikatia
Stingray
Miss Kahikatia
GPM Service
Curious Cove Wharf
Ventors launching

Curious Cove Holiday Resort

story & photos ex Simon Manning

These are of the Manning family’s various boats and also some of the Red Funnel boats at Curious Cove, Picton, which my family owned from the 1940’s through until the early ’70’s as a holiday camp.  Water access only – a great place to be as a kid.
Most were photos taken on a busy day during the holiday season, always holiday makers coming and going and various days trips.
Update from Chris Manning – 01/08/2013
The speedboat is a Chris Craft replica, “Stingray”. Bought by my grandfather, A.R. Manning, in the 60’s. Sadly Stingray is no longer around, she was built for lakes and had been fastened with brass and basically fell apart. Reportedly she was very quick and stories of my Dad and his cousin driving her at full chat under the Curious cove wharf (while the his Mum and Dad were away) surfaced at his funeral.Being towed by the Buick truck is Ventora, a 28′ vindex stretched to 32′ – Dad wanted a big cockpit for fishing. She was built at Curious Cove and launched in the early 1970’s. She is still around somewhere in Northland.

The old commercial launch in the photo with the tyre fender is a bit if a mystery. She might be a Picton built Lane launch as she shares hull lines with Iris and Mavis. She could be Whareatea, built by Claude Wells in Whakatahuri. I would welcome any suggestions.

The two photos in the bottom right have are Red Funnel Launches launch Ramona (currently on the hard in Picton (top), Rongo (l) and Rawene (r) (bottom left photo). I know Rongo is gone but I don’t know whatever happened to Rawene after she stopped being the Picton mail boat in the 1980’s

Rehutai (Wellington)

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Rehutai (Wellington)

REHUTAI (Wellington)

story & photo ex Russell Ward

Rehutai (this one) was (according to Harold) built in 1926 by Sam Ford at St. Mary’s Bay for C.C. Ross of Wellington and had a 50/75 Stearns engine.
Ross owned her at least until 1933. In 1957 she was owned by R.N. Barton of Featherston.
I would have sworn she was a Lanes boat. Just shows you.

Harold Kidd Update:

ALL ROADS LEAD TO LANES! Actually Garth Lane personally built every launch constructed in Auckland from 1905 onwards and licensed/franchised boatbuilders to put their nameplates on them. But seriously, you can tell an Auckland-built launch at a mile; there was an Auckland “look”. Compare images of contemporary Dunedin/Australian/ US/British/French/Italian/wherever launches and there are strong family resemblances within Auckland launches. It’s not hard to figure out; it’s a cultural and fashion thing. So, when Logan Bros went out of business in 1911, lots of builders started building Logan-style double-enders of class. They all built what their owners wanted them to build. I defy anyone to get the provenance of an Auckland launch right just by looking at an image of it, particularly when, like this Sam Ford REHUTAI it has been changed time and time again over the years.

PS Recently I did a count of the “Oliver & Gilpin” launches then currently on TradeMe. There were 9 of which only 4 were built by Oliver & Gilpin, the rest were knock-offs. With the other 5, that distinctive O&G style had been copied so well that their owners were convinced and had no hesitation in claiming O&G provenance (with potentially dire commercial consequences for misrepresentation).